Sequence
by Relala
Summary: They're not really a team, because a team is more than a one-sided thing./JamesxJessie.•ONE SHOT•


**~ sequence ~**  
>JessieJames** T.** 1,014

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><p>"Call them."<p>

James stuffs his hand into his pocket, fingers curling around coins there, until the slick edges bite into the tender flesh of his palm. A dollar and some quarters; it's the last money he has on him. He tries to picture what his father would say if he were to ever see his son like this, nearly penniless and sitting on the street corner, covered in dirt and bested once more by a teenage boy and his pals.

The scrape of Jessie's boot in the dirt jars him out of his thoughts. "If you can't summon up the courage," Jessie says, her voice as hard as rocks, "I'd like to know now so I can come up with a plan to get us out of this situation."

"Should I refrain from pointing out that you got us here in the first place?" James asks, cocking his head to the side and widening his eyes in mock consideration. "It was your blasted idea. So technically, I feel it's your duty to get us out of this mess anyway."

"Is that how it works now?" Jessie snaps. "We screw up, and one of us hurls the blame at the other?"

James grins at her—all teeth, no eyes. "The person who makes the mistake is generally the one who has to make up for it, yes."

"Forgive me," Jessie says, turning away from his smile with a disgusted curl of her lip. "Here I was thinking we were a team."

"Is that what you thought." Despite the wording, it's not a question. It's a statement, laced with the bitterness and disappoint that James usually hides behind an upbeat laugh and the curve of a smile. He twines a long strand of Jessie's scarlet hair around his finger and yanks her towards him, until his lips are pressed against the seashell curl of her ear. "Really. A _team._"

His voice is smooth and melodious in her ear, and so close._ Too_ close. Jessie whirls and slams a palm into his stomach. He doubles over, forced to let her hair slip out of his fingers as she darts away from him, in order to attend to the ache in his gut.

"Damn it, Jessie." His voice is flimsy, edged with pain.

She shakes her head, and regards him—bent in two, one hand still clenched in his pocket because he is prone to lose things so easily, and the other wrapped around his stomach, fingers splayed on his gut. Faced contorted in pain, eyes squeezed tight. She might feel sympathetic for him, but as soon as weak emotions like that pop up in her heart she stomps on them and grinds them to dust with the heel of her boot, so they don't come back to ruin her later. "Do you have any idea how angry I am at you right now?"

Their eyes catch, blue on green, and a moment of understanding passes between them. It would be silent save for James's ragged gasps for breath, and the litany of curses that Jessie's eyes throw at him.

"It's okay to _need_, Jessie. To want to be more."

"Don't flatter yourself. I've met more appetizing things in back alleys."

Like Pikachu's lightning, that one leaves a lasting sting. "I'll just bet you have," James retaliates. "It would certainly explain how you get us out of so many tight jams, wouldn't it? Find a few strays in back alleys—and get a little compensation for taking them in for the night."

"Is that what you really think?"

"Sure," James spits viciously. "It's nothing you haven't done before. And it's exactly the type of thing you'd do now because heaven forfend you actually ask for help. You've always got to go it alone, even if there are other options on the table."

"Other options." Jessie repeats dubiously.

"Yes, like coming to me."

She laughs, low and bitter. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

_Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, I would—_

"You say you thought we were a team, but you only say that because it's in our stupid name!" James looks away and clutches his stomach desperately but it doesn't help, because the ache he's trying to squeeze away is a little higher up than that. "Being a team implies that we can rely on each other. It means that you can ask me for help instead of ordering me to do things. It means…that when one of us needs someone to help them up, to hold them when the world falls apart, that the other one is there for them."

Distaste mars her features. "It doesn't work like that in the real world."

"Why? Because you don't want to believe in it?" James stands and takes a step forward, sewing the distance between them. Her eyes are hard glittering pieces of diamond, and her skin is cold when he places his hands on either side of her face and brings their lips so close together that they share breath. "I can—I can be there for you," he says hesitantly, "if you'll just let me in."

But Jessie's belief in people is a frayed and tattered thing. Once more, she shoves him away, slamming her hands into his shoulders, sending him reeling into the dirt. "I can't—you can't—what do you think you're playing at here?" she splutters, swiping the back of one gloved hand over her lips as if he actually had to gull to kiss her without her consent. "I said I wanted to be a _team_, not a couple!"

"It's perfectly possible for us to be both."

Jessie turns her back on him, ignoring his words, and it is exactly the kind of reaction that he has come to expect of her. After seven years, James is finally beginning to understand what Jessie is to him—just another failure in a sequence of fuck ups that he can't seem to break.

She walks away, boots munching up the dirt with loud crunching noises. "Call them," she tosses over her shoulder. "I won't wait all night."

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><p><strong>first draft:<strong> _03-11-12  
><em>

**revisions: ** _6-25-12_


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